It hurts to wake up after 2 hours of sleep after a headlining show after just flying into a new continent. It hurts to pile into a van with other tired, still-drunk band and crew-mates and show up at the airport to check in 30-40 pieces of luggage and gear and deal with airport staff and security and then fly, collect it all, back into a van, then a long ride to a hotel. But hey - I could be cleaning porto-potties.

When we landed in Sao Paulo, the ex-singer of Angra came up and thanked me for my kind words about one of my favorite metal albums he performed on ("Temple Of Shadows"). I was very stoked to meet Edu - his vocal range is un-matched in power metal - especially on "Temple". We chatted the metal-ness of South America and found out we were both playing shows at venues on the same block that night. I met his new band, Almah, we shot some photos together, traded contacts, and were off. Super rad.

The hotel we were put in was right in a nice area of Sao Paulo, so we'd be able to walk about later on. My view out my window was breath taking... Sao Paulo is big... really really big. I've never seen a skyline that basically engulfs an entire sky-scape. Sao Paulo is the fourth largest city in the world and man is that evident when you actually get to look at it from a 20th floor window.

Lunch time. We gather up some Trivs and all of Dragonforce and their crew. We were happy to be reunited with Dragonforce once again; Trivium toured with Dragonforce back in 2007 on the Black Crusade tour (Machine Head/Trivium, Dragonforce, Arch Enemy, Shadows Fall) and its always a blast to see the DF dudes - Fred, Sam, and Herman are some of the funniest dudes I know in a band.

Lunch is at Gallo I Vino, a Brazilian/Italian place. In addition to the country being initially colonized by the Portuguese, massive influxes of Italians and Japanese and all sorts of other ethnicities have their culinary and architectural influence ever-present all about the country. Sao Paulo has the second highest population count of Japanese outside of Japan!

Marcos described the place as having "pasta and chicken" - a very true depiction. We are served chicken wings and then some more chicken wings - served salted and charred; different pastas accompany. Different cuts of chicken and grilled meats start to come out, vegetable dishes as well - flavor-wise, picture a grill-based Brazilian-steakhouse that churns out the occasional great pasta dish or fried polenta fry. Every dish was served simply - never over-seasoned or over-thought. Everything was real good.

We catch up over a good meal with our DF buddies, then head back to the hotel to prep to head to the venue for sound check.